Steve Hansen baffled by England tour timing

Opposite number Stuart Lancaster has been unable to include any Saracens or Northampton Saints players in his initial 30-man squad with the clubs set to face off in the Aviva Premiership final on Saturday.

Further players will be added to the travelling party on Monday, but are not thought to be in contention for selection for the opening Test on June 7.

And Hansen has revealed his bemusement that the three-match series was not pushed back to July.

“The obvious solution would be to move the Test series to July,” he is quoted as saying by BBC Sport . “I don’t know why they don’t want to do that.

“They must think it would give an advantage to us, but in fact it would give an advantage to them.”

Hansen has fitness concerns over number eight Kieran Read (concussion) and fly-half Aaron Cruden (thumb), but with another round of Super Rugby fixtures to come before England arrive, the former Wales boss is happy to play the waiting game.

“There’s another game this weekend so we’ll have to wait and see who comes through that and how they come through it,” he added.

“Both of them are in a situation where they haven’t had a lot of game time and we can’t change that. That’s just life.

“We’ll make our judgements on them once they get through Saturday – if they both play and they come through that, we’ll get the group together and make some decisions on who’s going to start and those sorts of things.”